


Even If He Wished

by opheliadreaming



Series: Be My Love [1]
Category: Shakespeare RPF | Elizabethan & Jacobean Theater RPF, Will (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 01:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliadreaming/pseuds/opheliadreaming
Summary: Christopher Marlowe was a legend in Will’s eyes. In the school’s eyes. In the eyes of every other student he met while registering for classes.Will Shakespeare was a curiosity, or at least, a source of exasperation for Kit.Dealing with college, family, each other, and themselves. In other words, the slow burn university au no one asked for.





	1. Prologue

Not marble nor the gilded monuments  
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,  
But you shall shine more bright in these contents  
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.  
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,  
And broils root out the work of masonry,  
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn  
The living record of your memory.  
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity  
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room  
Even in the eyes of all posterity  
That wear this world out to the ending doom.  
So, till the Judgement that yourself arise,  
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

\- William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 55”


	2. Act I

**Scene 1**

  
Christopher Marlowe was a legend in Will’s eyes. In the school’s eyes. In the eyes of every other student he met while registering for classes. They were 18, barely out of high school but not yet in college. Will imagined them all to be in an academic Purgatory from which they would soon depart for the Heaven that high school instructors had promised university would be. The freedom to study what you dreamed, the freedom to be who you wanted. Both ideas had long been lodged in Will’s imagination, and as move-in day drew nearer, both ideas slid evermore into the front of his mind.

  
He’d been born in a small city—or a large town depending on your choice of semantics. Perhaps calling it a small city was an aspirational echo of Will’s dreams for money, fame, and freedom. University was his chance to get out, to get away and pursue those dreams. It was a chance at reinvention. He wouldn’t have to be the glovemaker’s son who spent his free time working in his father’s shop. He wouldn’t have to be the neighborhood boy everyone knew from the community center’s summer recital of Pygmalion. At university, he would write himself a new role. Will wanted to be important, but more than that, he wanted to be remembered.

  
As much as he longed to shed his country rustic skin for something new, from a glance, he could tell Christopher Marlowe had no such wish. And why would he? It was as if charisma were a second skin, a jacket he could put on at will, the state of existence rather than a performance. The chill of autumn hadn’t set in yet, but the heat and glow of summer were on their way out. The leather jacket was slung around his shoulders as if it were a king’s cape with Marlowe the sovereign of the freshman class. In his arms, he held a book bound in midnight blue and a notebook. The gold lettering on the spine of the book caught Will’s eye, momentarily distracting him from Marlowe.

  
“ _Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree_ ,” the voice, lilting through the iambic rhythm, pulled Will’s focus away from the book’s title and to the smirking face of its owner. If the blue of the book was the color of the eastern sky just before night, then the eyes of the owner shouldn’t have been able to compete for intensity, but they were wild violets with a barely leashed energy just below the surface. He was magnetic.

  
Will tensed and stepped back unconsciously, putting a few inches between himself and Marlowe. He looked into those fields of wild violets and their angular face that was waiting for a response. He blinked to regain himself.

  
“Milton,” he blurted. “We’re not reading that till November.” Will had looked over the syllabus for their literature survey class which they appeared to be sharing.

  
“Very good,” Marlowe said. “You know your classics.”

  
Will forced himself to relax as his heart hammered in his chest. There was no reason to be nervous. Sure, Marlowe had surprised him, but now he needed to calm down. He was just another student, like Will, like the hundred others standing in this hallway waiting for the doors of the lecture hall to open. There was no reason to be nervous.

  
When he looked back to Marlowe, the other had opened the book and was leaning against the wall, for all appearances, reading. Taking his opportunity, Will noted how Marlowe’s blond hair fell around his face like a frame, and the how the picture was a study of concentration as his eyes ran over the lines. Occasionally, his lips moved as he mouthed a line or a phrase to himself as if saving it for later. Will’s attention was pulled away by the opening of the lecture hall’s doors as a swell of students poured into the hallway. He had to move back against the wall to let them through, but that also meant backing into Marlowe. He felt the edge of the book against his shoulder before a hand steadied him as Will moved to his right.

  
“First day and you’re already unsteady? You must’ve had a fascinating night.” An answering apology was ready on Will’s lips, but the amusement in Marlowe’s tone stopped him. Will was being teased by someone he only knew through their work and the report of others. Instead of an apology, Will found himself wanting to match the other’s humor. What was it but a little fun?

  
“Are you speaking from experience?” Will watched for a reaction as Marlowe looked up from his book and towards the open door of the lecture hall.

  
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” His eyes were dark, and Will’s stomach flipped in a not unpleasant way. Before he could utter his reply, Marlowe inclined his head once and headed for the lecture hall with a thumb tucked into his book to hold his spot.

  
_Only if you want to tell me_ , Will thought to himself, but he quickly banished the thought. What had he been thinking? Banter, sure, that’s fine with a complete stranger, but that wasn’t what he’d just done. That wasn’t what his reply was angling to be. Will banished any other forward thoughts as he entered the lecture hall, and he directly forbade himself from looking around the room for Marlowe as he moved towards the front of the room and took a seat several rows from the stage at the front. A professor was preparing notes at a podium, and Will moved to take his book and notes out. He was here to learn, and the bright burning star of the freshman class wasn’t going to distract him from that fact. That he was here, at university, at all was an accomplishment, a blessing, and he wasn’t going to squander a moment of it over a pair of blue eyes that just seemed to read too much of you.

 

**Scene 2**

  
Will Shakespeare was a curiosity, or at least, a source of exasperation for Kit. After the first day, Kit kept repeating the opening lines of Milton to himself to make sure he’d read the meter correctly, to make sure he’d gotten the words right. He’d seen the recognition in Will’s eyes when he was just four words into the first line, like he’d known the poem by heart, breathed it, lived with it. What would he think of the twat who thought he could quote some iambic pentameter at him, but quote it wrong? Kit knew what he would think of such a person.

  
He knew what they thought of him. He knew what they said of him. Christopher Marlowe was the talk of the student body in the English department. With each flare and burn of pride and accomplishment that he felt when he caught someone staring before they looked away, when a professor warmly shook his hand and complimented his work, when someone knew his name, Kit forced the smirk to remain on his face and forced his posture to remain relaxed. They couldn’t know that he was a fraud, that he hadn’t written anything since he’d received that award that recognized potential. What kind of fucking potential did he have when he hadn’t written anything for months? He could read his way through history and claim to be researching, but how long before people stopped believing that? Before he stopped believing it?

  
The semester continued, and it only took Kit a couple of classes before he figured out how he did not need to pay attention to this literature seminar. The professor posted the class notes to their online portal. The reading schedule was readily available to them. What else did he need? Plus, his other classes had assignments and deadlines of their own. If he could gain an extra three hours of work time each week during this class, then he was going to take it.

  
At the beginning of each class, Kit looked for the curly brown hair that was pushed away from a forehead, the start of a thin beard on a sharp jawline, or the clear blue of intelligent eyes. Each time, Kit couldn’t find him, or he’d find too many imperfect copies of what he was looking for. Maybe he’d dropped the class, or maybe he just didn’t show up. Heaven knows Kit had already skipped a few times. Whatever it was, Kit did not know the name of the student who hadn’t even blinked when he’d done his very best to impress with epic poetry.

  
The fact that he couldn’t find the other man, or that another freshman was that familiar with Milton wasn’t what made Will Shakespeare a curiosity. He also told himself it wasn’t because such a brief interaction was burned into Kit’s brain. The reason Will Shakespeare was a curiosity was because Kit hadn’t learned his name till a few days ago, and he wanted to know the name of an equal.

  
He had his chance when two months into the semester, essays were handed back. Graders were calling out names to hand back their first papers of the semester. The papers were divided in half according to alphabetical last name, and Kit saw a figure with ink stained fingers push his hair back and make for the left side of the room from a seat near the front. He hid a smile to himself because of course Will sat near the front. Kit almost followed him over until he heard his name called. A grader held up a folded essay as Kit made his way through the crowd with his book—he’d moved onto _The Faerie Queene_ a few days ago—and received his essay. He glanced briefly at the high grade, circled in red ink, before looking back over to the other side of the room. His eyes scanned the group of assembled students waiting for their names to be called. Students moved past him and out of the lecture hall as he looked briefly down at his essay again while keeping half his attention on the crowd and names being called out. At the top of his paper, there was a note of “see me” written by the professor. See me? Why? For a freshman seminar, he’d gotten a good grade on the paper for a class he didn’t pay attention to. He was reading his way through the syllabus quicker than the class was, and wasn’t that what college was supposed to be? A chance to learn at your own speed and interest? That’s what he’d thought it was before the reality of bureaucratic registration, degree requirements, and four year tracks slammed into him at summer orientation.

  
“Will Shakespeare!”

  
Kit’s attention completely left his essay as his acquaintance reached out with ink stained fingers for his folded essay. He saw the figure mutter a quick thanks before taking the paper and walking towards Kit and the door. In the moments before he’d reach him, Kit committed that face to memory. The curls, the blue eyes, the straight nose, and lips that were reading over the grader’s comments. His bag hung from one shoulder, and there was a hole in the knee of his jeans. Kit watched as Will nearly walked into another student as he poured over his essay. Kit had barely given his a second glance, but as he moved to fall into step next to Will, a group of girls walked between them. He watched as Will exited the lecture hall into the packed hall where the next class’s students were waiting. He tried to duck around the group of girls, but there wasn’t a way through, and when he emerged into the hallway, Will Shakespeare wasn’t anywhere in sight.

  
Eyes were starting to watch him as he stared around at the crowd, searching for one face in particular. _Let them stare_ , he thought harshly before pulling his jacket on and heading for the stairwell that would take him outside. Once he was in the crisp autumn air, he continued to look around for Will, but there was even less chance of finding him out here than there was in the crowded hallway.

  
The chill of October must have had an encouraging effect on his mind as he walked to his next class. He may have lost his mysterious equal this time, but at least he had a name.

 

 **Scene** **3**

  
_It’s fine. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. You got a good grade on your paper. The professor isn’t mad at you. You didn’t do anything wrong_. Will kept repeating variations of this as he walked to his survey professor’s office. The little “see me” written on his paper in a different hand from the comments had been eating at his concentration for the past day. Why did his professor want to see him? How many other people had gotten this note? Had any other people gotten this note?

  
Will shook his head and pulled the door to the English department open. When he’d shown the comment to his roommate, Richard had shrugged.

  
“Doesn’t seem like anything to worry about. It’s probably a good thing actually,” he’d said. If it was a good thing, then the professor would expect him to write like this all the time, but how was he going to accomplish that? He couldn’t afford to pay grading services each time he needed feedback and edits on a paper. At the thought, Will’s insides twisted nervously. The paper was his own work, but the fact that he now had a secret to go with it was less assuring. He hadn’t even told Richard, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell his professor.

  
He took a breath to steady himself before turning the corner of the hallway, counting numbers on the outsides’ of office doors for office 431. In his distraction, Will didn’t notice that there was someone else waiting outside room 431.

  
“See me?” The voice wasn’t speaking in meter this time, but Will’s heart jumped into his throat all the same. When he looked up, Christopher Marlowe was leaning against the wall with a different book in his hands. The last one had been blue and hard-bound. This one was a paperback, and he was over halfway through it.

  
_Yes, I do_ , Will’s brain handed him a response that he immediately swallowed down. He saw how tall Marlowe was and how his lanky form was folded lazily against the wall. He felt the energy that seemed to radiate off of him in quiet waves that pulled Will closer rather than pushing him away. He saw an exposed collarbone and the hint of a tattoo on Marlowe’s chest.

  
Yes, Will saw him, but his mind seemed to remember itself and recalled the real reason why he was here in this hallway. The essay, the professor’s note.

  
“See me,” Will confirmed, and he held up his essay to prove it. It also meant that he flashed his grade to Christopher Marlowe, the shooting star of the freshman class. He couldn’t help the small smirk when he saw Marlowe’s eyes appraise his grade. He could write just as well as the class favorite, and he didn’t need all the money in the world to do it.

  
“I see I wasn’t the only one,” Marlowe said. He slipped a scrap of paper into his book and closed it. When he did, Will caught a glimpse of the cover. It was another one of the texts from their survey class.

  
“Did you think you were?”

  
Marlowe shrugged. “I’m the one who got the prize, remember?”

  
Will rolled his eyes and turned back to the door. Getting a straight answer out of Marlowe was a more difficult process than any analysis he had to do for classes. He glanced back at Marlowe before raising a hand to the door. Where his posture had been relaxed, languid, it was now rigid as if he were now on unsteady ground. Had Will done that? What had he said that was so wrong? Or was he nervous about this meeting too?

  
Will knocked on the door which opened shortly after. Their professor smiled at him before seeing Marlowe over Will’s shoulder. He looked back at Marlowe once before entering the office.

  
The office was a haven to Will. Bookcases lined any available wall space. Spines in warm golds, deep reds, greens, blues, dusty grays, and every other color sat in neat orderly rows. Loose paper sat on top of them, were tucked in between volumes, were taped to shelves. Everywhere, ideas and words held close conference, and their professor’s desk was no different. A small bust of Homer stood on one corner next to a small model ship encircled by a whale. Their professor was a woman of remarkable energy. In lectures, Will could forget his other classes and concerns and focus solely on her words and the texts she was lecturing about. He tried to recall that feeling and relax. His professor was smiling. She wasn’t mad at him.

 

**Scene 4**

  
Kit waited outside the office. He’d been there first so why was he still waiting out here while Will was inside? He’d just waltzed up, and with those pretty blue eyes, distracted Kit…who in turn, had let himself be distracted. And since when did he think Will’s eyes were pretty? He’d just learned the man’s name yesterday.

  
He shook his head and stared back at the office door. The window was covered in posters. One advertised a center for writing help, another the theater school’s fall season, and another was a a landscape print of a bland countryside if not for the all-green knight riding across the picture.

  
When Will reemerged from the office fifteen minutes later, he looked like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His smile came a little easier, his eyes a little brighter.

  
“She wants to speak with you,” Will said. Would Will wait for him? He had no right to ask it of him, but he wanted to all the same.

  
Kit entered the office and looked over his shoulder. He saw Will nod slightly and lean against the wall where he’d stood earlier. Kit felt a soaring feeling in his chest as he looked forward again.

  
The office was exactly what he would expect from a university professor. Book shelves stuffed to the seams, a coat rack with a plaid blazer hung on the hook, on the windowsill, a collection of tea cups. Glass jars of loose leaf sat among the books looking like samples from a witch’s garden, and even Kit had to allow that the double stacked shelves held their own kind of magic. He would never deny that.

  
He flopped into the available chair.  “You wanted to see me.”

  
His professor turned away from her computer. The light from the screen washed her warm brown skin with a pallor unsuited to the kindness in her voice. Kit imagined that the glow from his own computer must’ve paled him to the color of bone. _A skeleton within and without_ , he mused. Perhaps he’d use that for something.

  
“Yes, you did well on the paper. Good job, and keep it up.”

  
He waited, but she just smiled at him. “Is that it?”

  
“Unless you have any questions,” she said. “I see you’re already reading _The Faerie Queene_. What do you think of it?”

  
His answer was perhaps too quick. “It’s terribly predictable.”

  
“It’s a parallel narrative.” There was a note of amusement in his professor’s voice. “What do you think of the language?”

  
Kit shrugged in place of a real answer. “That part I like.”

Another beat of silence. “Well, if you don’t have any questions for me, I’ll see you in class. I just wanted to check in with you and let you know that I’m pleased your work.”

  
“Thank you.” Kit rose quickly and strode to the door, not too concerned with what his haste looked like. Will’s nod seemed to say that he would wait there for Kit, but he always seemed to disappear after class, a blue-eyed specter that could only exist just out of reach, taunting him. When he opened the door, Will’s eyes flashed to his, and the smirk that was on his face fell immediately away.

  
“Are you okay? You look horrified,” Will stepped towards him as Kit closed the door. He shook his head to clear it, but that did little to ease the embarrassment at getting caught. It was too late to take it back so he might as well run with it, run before Will ran off again.

  
“Just surprised you’re still here. You always seem to disappear when I look for you,” Kit said. He fell into step next to Will.

  
Will rolled his eyes. “Since when are you ever looking for me? The only other time I talked to you was two months ago.”

  
There was something cagey in his voice that stalled Kit’s reply. When he met Will’s gaze, he saw caution. Had Will wanted to talk to him? If he had, why hadn’t he approached him? And by god had he forgotten how blue his eyes were?

  
Kit’s smirk broadened into a near smile. “My my Will, I didn’t know you missed me so much.”

  
Now Will laughed, and the sound tugged a genuine grin out of Kit. “Maybe I could join your fan club. Can you tell me when meetings are?” The reminder of his past success soured Kit’s smile into a grimace before he controlled himself.

  
“Christopher?”

  
Will was staring at him again, and Kit felt raw like he’d gone outside with a jacket. He looked away from Will. He didn’t want to know what Will read in him. Would he like what he saw? Or would he take it as evidence to disappear again?

  
“Kit," he corrected. "No one calls me Christopher.”

  
When he felt the search light of Will’s gaze move away from him, he risked a glance back at Will who was still watching him, but Kit didn’t feel bare. He still felt caught up in Will’s intensity, but it was the warm glow of winter sunshine rather than the blinding force of a flood light.

  
“No one?”

  
“No one.”

  
“Maybe someone should.”

  
Kit raised an eyebrow. “Okay, William. Try it and see how well it works for you.”

  
Will chuckled and held the door of the building open for Kit. Outside, Will started off across campus towards the northern end of campus, and Kit, with nothing better to do, followed him.

  
“I have a class in the Exchange,” Will explained.

  
Kit didn’t have a class till noon, but he didn’t want to leave just yet. Luckily, he’d never run out of things to say. Even around Will Shakespeare. “Why do you have a class there? I thought you were studying English.”

  
“And business,” Will tucked a loose curl behind an ear. “My dad wanted me to study something practical.” Kit heard the sour note in his voice when he said the last word, and he couldn’t agree more.

  
“What’s more practical than language, written and spoken?

  
This time Will’s laugh was bitter and short and tired. “Dead poets aren’t going to get you a job after college,” his voice became a poor imitation of who Kit guessed was his father before returning to normal, “but he’s not here.” Will stood a little straighter when he said the last part, and he met Kit’s gaze with fire in his eyes as if daring Kit to tell him he was wrong.

  
Wrong about which part, Kit didn’t know, but he couldn’t. More importantly, he wouldn’t. Will was willing to defend his choices to a near stranger, and Kit wouldn’t take that conviction away for the world. He’d thought it was determination that he’d heard in Will’s voice and read in the line of his shoulders and tilt of his jaw, a blunt stubbornness that would carry him through whatever he chose, but now he thought it was belief, finely edged with talent and intelligence. Will believed in his own ability to accomplish two degrees, to prove his father wrong, to succeed through whatever challenge rose up to try and prove him wrong.

  
The realization that Will believed in himself through everything caused Kit’s stomach to flip uncomfortably like Will was a mirror, bright, shining, and whole. Untouchable. Kit was the one reflected, and he didn’t like what he saw. In Will’s brightness, he was the shadow even if the world thought otherwise.

  
“Kit? Kit!”

  
Kit blinked back to reality. They were standing at the bottom of the steps that led up to the Exchange’s glass double doors. Will had a hand on his wrist, and had shaken him gently.

  
He glanced down at the ink stained fingered wrapped around his wrist. Will’s hand was warm, and he could feel a callous on his thumb. Too soon, Will let go.  
“If you wanted to hold my hand, you could’ve just said so.”

  
“Um—”

  
A light flush rose in Will’s cheeks, and he looked away from Kit towards the doors of the building, looking for an exit. He feared that he’d scared Will away again, but when Will looked up at him, his gaze was neutral.

  
“I have class now, but I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

  
“I’ll make sure to show up this time.”

  
Will rolled his eyes and turned away. He was a few steps up the stairs when he turned back. “Hey Kit.”

  
“Yes?”

  
He tugged on his backpack strap with his hand. “There’s always empty seats next to me. I sit seven rows from the front on the right side of the room,” he said. “If you want to,” his offer trailed off into a shy smile.

  
“Sit with you? Unless you’re propositioning for something else?” Kit’s grin was wicked and irreverent, and he was more and more enjoying Will’s eye rolls at each forward comment.

  
“For Christ’s sake yes, to sit with me. Goodbye, Christopher.”

  
“Till tomorrow, William.” Kit laughed at Will’s joke on his name. Will took the stairs two at a time. He glanced once over his shoulder when he was at the top to Kit who was still standing at the base of the stairs. He grinned again, and Will shook his head slightly before entering the building.

  
Kit was sure Will had been smiling.


	3. Act II

**Scene 1**

  
“Hello? Anyone there?”

  
He hummed in response to Kit’s prodding while the class settled in. Lecture hadn’t started, and he was using every free moment to study for today’s quiz.

  
“Will!” Kit waved his hand under his nose, and Will pushed him away.

  
“Not now, I’m studying.”

“You’re cramming,” Kit corrected. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” he added, but the comfort in his tone felt too forced to ease Will’s nerves.

  
“I will be if you let me study.”

  
Kit nudged his shoulder. “If you don’t know it by now, you aren’t going to learn it in the next 30 seconds.”

  
“Shut up and let me cram, Christopher.” Will heard Kit sigh next to him, but his friend didn’t bother him anymore.

  
The quiz wasn’t that hard at all. Will checked over his work twice before deciding that he was satisfied with it. He risked a glance towards Kit out of the corner of his eye and was relieved to see that Kit wasn’t looking at him. In profile, Kit’s beauty was too sharp to belong to classical masters, to the works of art that were cloistered in ivory halls. Even still, Kit stood apart. His genius was as visible to Will as his high cheekbones or how his hair curled slightly at the ends. It had to be visible to everyone, and Kit wore it well.

  
“Pencils down.”

  
Will’s attention fractured as he remembered he was in class again, but an uneasy feeling remained in his stomach. As he passed his paper to the end of the row, Will tried to deny what it was. As if denying the thing a name would starve it to death. If he didn’t acknowledge his own jealousy, then it would cease, he wouldn’t feel it. He knew it wasn’t true even as he yearned to believe it. Jealousy was an ugly and creeping thing. It grew among feelings of admiration and respect and bloomed to sour friendships and relationships. When you noticed it poisoning your life, it was already too late. Envy had taken root, and he couldn’t cut it away even if he wished he could.

  
Will was jealous of Kit’s talent and the ease with which he carried himself, the freedom inherent in his existence. He was burning through their reading list like he’d grown up on these stories. His paperback copy of The Faerie Queene was creased in several places along the spine, the sign of a well loved book by a well read man. Kit moved through life with a flawless armor of charm and intelligence. Will could only hope to one day produce a flawed copy of that armor, but his would of course be made from baser metals. He’d expected university to be freeing, but he felt as constrained as ever. Watching every word, every gesture, every action and inaction. When would it end?

  
He pressed his hands against his eyes. What was he thinking? His own stupid jealousy was going to spoil one of the few friendships he’d managed to make. Friendships? The word gave Will pause, but he had no place to call them anything else. Anne was waiting for him back home, and at the thought of her, guilt rose up to settle next to his jealousy.

  
_Don’t worry, it’ll be break sooner than you think. I love you._

  
But that was the problem. He didn’t want classes to break for holidays. Will loved his life of late nights and early mornings, those nights with Richard, Alice, and Autolycus where time seemed infinite and he reveled in the feeling of fitting his youth, and the…

  
He stole another glance at Kit whose eyes flicked over to his. Will looked away.

  
The thrill being around Kit gave him, the challenge in every smirk and tilt of his chin. No, friend wasn’t the right word for Kit at all, and that was what worried him.

 

**Scene 2**

  
“I feel happy,” Will murmured. Alice’s and Moll’s room was quiet in the middle of the night, and the lights Alice had strung over her bed shone lightly, bathing everything in warm gold. Alice herself seemed to be gilded as she smiled at him.

  
“You sound surprised.”

  
Will ran his hand through her hair, marveling how it spilled over his fingers. “I am.”

  
Alice pressed a kiss to his chest, and Will felt like he was floating in the clouds. He wanted to spin poetry that could capture this moment forever, capture how Alice’s laugh tinkled in the silence, how her head fit under his chin. He didn’t want to lose a single detail, but even as he wished to hold onto the moment, guilt pricked at the back of his mind.

  
_Not now, not here_ , he thought and banished the feeling by capturing Alice’s lips in a kiss.


	4. Act III

**Scene 1**

Will looked at his phone again, but he still didn’t know how Kit had his number. Over the past month, Kit had never once asked for his number. If he had something to say to Will, he told him in class. Will didn’t dare ask for Kit’s number either. He could take a hint. The thought had Will reaching to rub his eyes again, but his hands were swatted away by Richard.

“Don’t you dare mess up my masterpiece.”

Will shoved his guilt over his relationship with Alice—and Anne, what a mess he’d made—away, and scowled at Richard. “I still don’t think this is a good idea.”

Richard dabbed some more white powder onto Will’s face. “Read me the text again.”

“Party at mine tonight. And you’d better come properly dressed.” Will managed to not stumble over the last two words like he had the first time he’d read it before reading out the address Kit had sent him.

Richard himself was wearing a button down shirt over a t-shirt emblazoned with a stylized red S. He’d styled his hair so one dark strand curled onto his forehead, and he’d “borrowed” a pair of glasses with thick black frames from the theater department’s costume storage. “Borrowed” because Richard had just taken them with what he swore was every intention of returning them, which of course meant Autolycus would “borrow” them from Richard in order to return them.

“For being both an actor and a writer, I thought you’d be more into Halloween than this,” Richard muttered. He picked up a stubby black pencil. “Close your eyes.”

“Since when has humanity’s capacity to be monstrous ever been contained to one single night in a mask? Without the mask, it’s just more honest,” Will said, testing the words out as if he were delivering a speech. Richard groaned.

“Its a Halloween party for fuck’s sake. You’re not gonna get laid saying shit like that.”

Alice with her hair down around her bare shoulders, with kiss swollen lips, with soft eyes, flashed in his mind, and Will hoped the makeup obscured his blush. More painful was the stab of guilt as he remembered Anne. “I have a girlfriend,” he said.

“Oh yeah, you do. Sorry about that.”

He could hear the apology in his roommate’s voice as well as his words, as Richard continued to draw across his eyelids. It took a few more minutes, but when Richard told him to open his eyes, Will blinked at his reflection. He could’ve made a bad joke about how his dark under eye circles didn’t need to be played up, or that he was finally the undead college student, killed by a combination of midterms and caffeine, but he did neither.

“Not too bad, right? Autolycus? What do you think?” Autolycus looked up from his laptop, notes and two textbooks open around him, and nodded approvingly at Richard’s handiwork.

“You should do something to his cheekbones. Play up the anatomy of the skull.”

“You’re right.” Richard reached for a gray powder as Will watched him deepen existing shadows on his face.

 _Is this what the dead look like? Is this what the shades in Erebus look like? Is this the face of a sinner in hell?_   Will didn’t voice any of his questions as Richard worked. Richard would only tease him about it, but there was one person who would find them funny…the one person who’s text Will had been ignoring since he’d gotten it yesterday. Maybe he could ask Kit how he’d describe a shade in Tartarus, or how he’d describe a sinner in the sixth circle of hell.

“Don’t I need fangs if I’m going to be a vampire?” Will asked, deciding he’d go along with the costume.

Richard grinned. “Lucky that I just happen to have these then.” He held out a pair of caps for Will’s teeth that would give the impression of fangs. “And don’t worry. You can still drink with these in.”

Will eyed them with less caution than he would have expected. What else would really sell this costume? He thought about it while Richard helped him put on the fangs, and he saw the answer lying in a heap on his desk. Kit would get a kick out of this.

 

**Scene 2**

He shouldn’t be constantly checking for him. It was stupid really. Will hadn’t even answered his text so there was no reason to suspect that he’d come. Kit took another drink from the bottle in his hand and turned his attention back to Tommy who was trying to push his jacket down his arms.

“Won’t you tell me who you’re supposed to be?” His voice feathered over Kit’s exposed chest, and he pulled back, still keeping a hold of one of Tommy’s hands. Tommy was dressed as a pirate, if pirates dressed like punk rockers from the 80s. Kit wasn’t complaining though. He was cute and attentive, and he and Emerson weren’t exclusive anyway.

“Darling, that would ruin the mystery,” he teased before scanning the room again.

Tommy didn’t catch his glance as he pulled Kit close again. Warm lips were pressed to his neck, and Kit could smell the alcohol on Tommy’s breath.

“I’m sure I can get you to tell me.” Kit grinned and grazed Tommy’s ear lobe with his teeth.

“You’ll have to work very hard,” he said and was rewarded with a shiver as warm hands traced lightly over his spine.

It was an accident he saw him at all. Kit lifted his eyes for a moment and saw his blue-eyed specter walk through his front door. For a moment, Kit thought he was watching a ghost pass through the living plane, but then the nonentity Clark Kent at Will’s side grabbed his arm, and Will’s serene and otherworldly expression became one of surprise. A blonde girl at his side grasped his hand as he was led towards Kit’s kitchen.

Kit extricated himself from Tommy’s embrace and wove his way through the crowd past angels and devils. He kept his comments to himself. Where was the creativity? Anyone could throw on a white dress and wings and call themselves an angel. The one night of the year where people could be absolutely anything, and they went for a tired old anthropomorphic symbol of purity? Pathetic. It was so much more fun to be among the damned. Didn’t they know that?

He saw one of said angels lead the nonentity away, and Kit couldn’t see where the blonde who’d held Will’s hand had went. Left alone, Will was standing in front of the row of bottles lined up on the counter.

“May I pour you a drink?” Kit asked.

Will turned to him and grinned drunkenly. Kit saw two pointed fangs press into Will’s bottom lip. “Come here often?”

“Not often enough,” Kit admitted with some amount of honesty. Maybe it was the alcohol that prompted the admission, but Will didn’t press the issue. Will reached for the bottle of vodka.

“Take a shot with me, Kit.” Kit poured one for each of them.

“Cheers, Will.” The alcohol burned on its way down, and Kit reached for a chaser. Will’s face twisted at the burning taste, but it turned quickly into a frown as his eyes roved over Kit’s costume.

“Who are you?” He smirked.

“If you have to ask, then you don’t deserve to know.”

“Piss off. Do you know what I am?”

Kit actually laughed at the outraged look on Will’s face. “Of course I do, William. You’re a vampire.”

The low lighting in Kit’s apartment emphasized the shadows of Will’s face even more than the makeup already did. It was like every trace of Will’s small town charm had been scrubbed away to reveal a new, knife sharp version of him who was all angled cheekbones and bottomless eyes. The black around his eyes turned his pale blue eyes electric, and Kit wondered if the tightness in his chest was what drowning felt like.

He collected himself when he noticed how Will’s eyes slipped and slid over his face like he wasn’t fully seeing Kit. Was he that drunk? He’d barely had anything here, but Kit didn’t know where he’d been before this. He watched Will lean against the counter which made it hard to tell how steady he really was.

“You know,” Will began, “I didn’t think this was a good idea.”

“Didn’t think what was a good idea?”

Will pointed to his face. “This.”

Kit grinned and when he looked at his face again he noticed other details of Will’s undead costume. Two pale dots on his neck for an old scar and a beaded chain that disappeared under the edge of Will’s open shirt. Kit raised a finger and slipped it under the chain. There was skin contact for only a moment, but he felt Will’s eyes on him again.

It was a rosary.

He threw his head back and laughed. “Well done, Will Shakespeare. Well done.”

Will smirked. “Like what you see?”

His voice was pitched low, and desire tugged at Kit who realized he hadn’t moved. His finger was still hooked on the chain of Will’s necklace, and they were standing close together. He knew Will had a girlfriend, and he knew there was something between him and Alice. Will was still staring at him with wide yet glassy eyes, and Kit wasn’t sure how to read him. He was clearly drunk. In the sober morning, Will would regret this if he even remembered it.

Kit chuckled and let the necklace drop. “It’s always nice to see another member of the damned.” What was that look on Will’s face? Why wasn’t he looking at Kit anymore?

“Kit?” Soft, quiet, unsure, the whisper of a breeze through an open field.

He raised an eyebrow as Will stepped closer to him. _He’s drunk, he’s completely drunk, he doesn’t mean this_. Kit repressed a sigh and put his lips to Will’s ear. Rather than going stiff, Will was warm and pliant in his arms. An arm wrapped around his waist, and Kit almost changed his mind about returning Will to his friends.

“Not tonight, sweet prince. You’re not yourself.” Then louder, “Let’s find those friends of yours.” With Will still holding onto him, Kit started moving them through the crowd of people in his apartment, looking for Richard and Alice, before he changed his mind and spent the night enjoying Will’s attentions in his kitchen. He spotted Richard and headed straight over.

“Kit?” Will asked again. He had the wild thought that Will sounded disappointed.

“There’s Richard,” Kit said. Will would thank him for this later.

Will sighed, and Kit wasn’t sure what that meant. He deposited Will with Richard before heading back to find Tommy. Will Shakespeare was enough of a challenge when he was clear-eyed and sober. Kit knew how to act around that Will, knew how to trade barbed comments and sly smiles. This hard edged Will who spoke in tender whispers was dangerous to him, to what he wanted. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Alice and another girl with short brown hair had joined Will and guided him to a sofa.

A vampire, of course. He just had to be a vampire.

 

**Scene 3**

When Will woke up the next day, he seriously regretted whatever choices he’d made the night before. He threw an arm over his eyes as sunlight crept in between the blinds. What time time was it anyway? Will groaned. His head was pounding, and the room might as well have been spinning.

“Good morning, blue-eyes. How do you feel?”

“Like there’s a goddess inside my head, pounding against my skull. Get me a hammer and break her out.”

Silence from Richard. “Um…are you still drunk?”

“No,” Will muttered. “You just don’t know your mythology.” Will pressed his hand against the side of the head to dull the worst of the pounding as he pushed himself up to sitting. He immediately regretted that as he leaned against the wall of their shared room with his eyes closed. How much did he drink last night? It hadn’t been that much right? When he started to count drinks, he started losing count somewhere on the way to Kit’s.

Will opened his eyes, headache momentarily forgotten.

He’d gone to Kit’s party last night. Dressed as…dressed as a vampire. And he couldn’t remember what happened there.

He rubbed his face to check for makeup, but his fingers came away clean.

“We cleaned your makeup off and got you to change your clothes and drink some water before you fell asleep,” Richard explained. He was sitting at his desk, but still in his pajamas. He didn’t look nearly as bad as Will felt.

“Did I,” he pressed his hands into his eye sockets and saw spots, “did I do…anything?”

Richard laughed which Will didn’t take as a good sign. “You called Greene a professional mediocrity who could go fuck himself.” Richard laughed some more. “Then when we went to Kit’s who, by the way, throws an excellent party,” Will wished Richard would get on with it. “You talked to him for a little bit, and eventually he brought you back to us. Alice and Moll watched you after that I think. I was…” Richard didn’t finish his sentence, but Will understood well enough.

He didn’t remember walking into Kit’s party, but he remembered that they’d gotten ready, gone to a theater party, and left. Now he could piece together that they’d gone to Kit’s. Will reached for his phone and found the text message invitation from yesterday.

“So nothing too embarrassing,” Will murmured. Someone had put pain killers and water next to his bed—probably Alice—and he quickly took them.

“What’re your plans for today?” Richard asked. “If you have time, can you look over my essay?”

“Sure,” Will muttered absently. He slid out of bed and started grabbing his clothes and shower basket. “Just send it to me.” He left Richard in the room and headed to take a shower. His head was still pounding, but he had a test next week and a paper due. His weekend couldn’t be spent nursing this divinely inspired hangover no matter how shitty he felt.

 

**Scene 4**

The pain killers were starting to work now. His head felt less like a goddess was trying to burst out and more like he’d just knocked his head on a low shelf. Richard was gone when he got back from his shower, and Will didn’t feel like waiting for him to come back. He’d ask Will to look over his essay again, Will would agree to, and then Richard would watch him until he did. Then Richard would stare at him as Will read.

It was infuriating.

He couldn’t stay here, and he couldn’t go to any of the usual places. Richard and Autolycus had found out all his secret library nooks and quiet places around campus. He needed a new place that was just his.

So that was why Will was walking down a nearby street with a beanie pulled over his hair and sunglasses over his squinted eyes. He hadn’t taken his bike, but that was okay. Walking was probably good for him, and the cold air of November was bracing even as he pulled his jacket more tightly around himself.

Up ahead, he saw a small cafe with large glass windows in front and a neon sign over the door: Groundlings. Will grinned to himself and headed for the door. Upon entering, the smell of coffee hit his senses, and he immediately felt more awake at the promise of nearby caffeine. Around the cafe, people sat at small round and square tables reading the paper, catching up, nursing solitary mugs. He didn’t see many college students, and the thought calmed him. He wanted a break from everyone for a moment, just a moment, then he could go back.

Will ordered his coffee and a scone for breakfast and headed to a square table around a corner of the cafe. There were fewer people back here, and Will wasn’t immediately visible from the front windows in case someone came looking for him.

“You look more yourself this morning,” a voice interrupted Will’s moment of calm that he couldn’t be found here.

“Kit!”

Kit grinned and walked over to him with a mug in his hands. “Fancy seeing you here.” He stood next to empty chair across from Will, but didn’t move to sit. “May I?”

Will waved his hand to let him know he could, and Kit took a seat. He didn’t say anything as Will sipped his coffee which had been served in a plain ceramic mug with rounded edges. It reminded him of home. Kit was twisting his own mug in a circle on the table, not quite looking at Will.

“Will, I—”

“Kit—”

They both tried to speak at the same time, and Will said, “You first.”

Kit nodded. “I wanted to apologize for last night, for if I made you uncomfortable in any way. I,” he made a bitter sound that Will figured for a laugh, “I misread your interest, and I’m sorry, truly.” Kit did look up to meet his eyes, and their wild violets looked beaten as if by a storm.

Will couldn’t stand the broken look on Kit’s face. This was Kit. He strode through life untouchable, as if daring it to rise up and challenge him, confident in his own victory. Supplicating and cautious was not the Kit he knew, but he was also confused. He didn’t know what Kit was talking about.

“I,” Will paused, “I accept your apology of course, but you didn’t. It’s fine.”

“Didn’t what?” Kit asked. He was leaning back in his chair with one hand still fiddling with his mug. Will noticed a stiffness in Kit’s frame despite the feigned ease of his posture. Whatever Kit thought he’d done was really bothering him.

Will scooted his chair closer to the table. “Misread my interest,” he said. Kit’s eyes flashed to his and held his gaze. Will wasn’t going to back down. Somehow Will knew this was about trust, and any falter would breed doubt and uncertainty between them. He wanted to see Kit smirk at him and hear his voice lilt through speech, not this cowed and wilted version of Kit.

Kit laughed once. It was still a bitter sound, but it held more warmth.

“Kit?”

“Hm?”

Will chewed on his lip. How to ask this. “What did I do?”

“You don’t even remember? Jesus Christ,” Kit swore. He sat up in his chair.

“I was really drunk.”

“No shit, William,” Kit said, taking a sip of his tea. Green, Will noted. “You asked if I liked your rosary,” Kit frowned. “Well, you’re exact words were ‘like what you see’ which I guess really didn’t just apply to your rosary.”

Will groaned. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? Or, why am I the one you’re apologizing to?” Kit peered at him, and Will looked down at his coffee. He knew what Kit was getting at. Anne, Alice, but he could’ve made his friend uncomfortable. He owed too many people apologies for his shitty behavior. His guilt was multiple shadows now.

He shook his head. “Never mind. Tell me what else happened.”

“You put your arm around me, whispered my name a few times,” he shrugged. “Nothing you need to go to confession over, but it was a bit of a come on.”

Will was thankful Kit didn’t press on the guilt he’d so easily pinpointed, but he also felt Kit was holding something back. He wasn’t sure if it was a memory, but he had a faint memory of the smell of alcohol, the warmth of another body, warm breath across his cheek. Sensations really, but he was confident they were real.

“What is it?”

“What?” Kit paused in the middle of lifting his mug to take a drink.

“You’re not telling me something.”

The corner of Kit’s mouth pulled up in a poor copy of his usual smirk. “What I’m leaving out is my own salacious pillow talk. Nothing you need to hear now.”

Will held his gaze. “Summarize.”

“I told you not tonight because you were drunk out of your mind, and…” Kit’s smirk slipped into a frown.

“And?” Will prodded. He wasn’t distracted by Kit’s dramatics.

“And you sounded disappointed the next time you spoke, and you wouldn’t look at me. Okay? That’s all.”

“Oh,” Will leaned back in his seat. “Thank you for telling me.”

Kit huffed. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

Will pulled his lap top out while Kit cracked open his book. Neither of them spoke while Will pulled up a study guide for his exam. The silence stretched on, and now that the caffeine and pain killers had killed his headache, there was too much space for his brain to think about their conversation and how Kit wasn’t talking to him. Surely he’d messed everything up. He shouldn’t have gotten that drunk, but it was a chance to forget about the shame dogging his every step and thought. Even now, he wouldn’t cope like that again. He’d endangered one of the few friendships he had that wasn’t dependent on secrets so he needed to forge ahead.

“So,” Will began, “how’s Tommy? That’s his name right?”

Kit pressed his hand to his mouth and his book fell to the floor with a smack. “ _How’s Tommy_? Fucking christ, Will, what is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“It’s just a question,” Will sputtered.

Kit rolled his eyes. “He’s fine. Look, you didn’t make me uncomfortable, I didn’t hurt you, we’re still friends, we’re good. Okay?”

Will exhaled and smiled. “Thanks, Kit.”

Kit chuckled for the first real time this morning. “Will Shakespeare, you certainly are a wonder.”


	5. Act IV

**Scene 1**

Will felt the ache in his chest as he held Alice closer to him. He felt that if he left this moment, left this room, then he’d never regain it. Will could tell himself that that wasn’t true. Alice would be here when he came back, and he’d pick this life back up in January. The worry still nagged at him that he was leaving something behind by returning home for the holidays.

“Don’t worry, okay?” Alice spoke softly. Her fingers smoothed over his brow and encouraged a smile out of him. “This will all be here when you get back.”

“Will you be here when I get back?” The question spilled out of him. Alice nodded.

“Yes.” Her blue eyes searched his, and Will leaned his forehead against hers.

 

**Scene 2**

"You’ve been awfully quiet.” Anne’s arms wound around his waist as he washed dishes from Christmas lunch.

Will leaned his head against hers. “Just focusing on the task at hand.”

“You’re always focusing on something. Just relax, you’re on break.” At her urging something coiled tighter in the pit of his stomach, making him fidget at the sink. Relax? Did he know how to relax. He caught sight of a phrase, _silver the air_ , written on wrist because he hadn’t had paper to write it down on. He wasn’t sure what he’d use the phrase for, but he knew it was worth keeping.

He rinsed off a plate. “I can’t stop. My mind just won’t stop.”

Anne sighed and rested her head against his back between his shoulder blades. “I wish you would slow down, just a little. I feel like I’m constantly playing catch up.”

“Anne,” Will turned away from the sink, scooping up a towel to dry his hands as he did. “I’m here even if my mind tries to run off without me. My heart is here.” He gathered her hand in his and laid it over his chest.

She smiled softly at him. Or was it sadly? He didn’t understand the look she gave him with faraway eyes and all her saintly patience, patience he didn’t deserve. Guilt reared it’s head again, and he repressed a wince.

“My heart is here,” he said and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Who was the reassurance for? For her? Or for him?

 

**Scene 3**

“I wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow.”

Kit pushed off of the door frame and was welcomed into Emerson’s arms and Emerson’s home.

“It’s past midnight. Tomorrow is here, my king.”

“Tomorrow will never be here, Wasp. It’s always the thing out of reach.” Emerson’s warm hand held his cheek, and Kit turned to kiss his palm. His smile slid easily to his face after he felt like he’d been holding his breath all day. Family functions were exhausting, but here, here he was himself, here he was loved.

 

**Scene 4**

Kit would never admit that he was counting down the days till the semester started again. Everyone was coming back from their holidays, and he couldn’t wait. Break could be dreadfully dull with no one around, but he was keeping occupied.

Emerson was around more, but he insisted on some distance during the semester. Kit would honor that. Maybe stars needed space to shine. Maybe they shone brighter when in isolation.

Books were his companions. Books in stacks in his bedroom next to his bed. Poetry anthologies in small towers on his dining room table. Essay collections balanced on the arm of his reading chair. Books were everywhere, and Kit was surrounded by words. His textbooks were in a heap in his bedroom, already read and perused.

If only he could produce some words of his own. He’d opened blank documents on his computer countless times, and the cursor had blinked threateningly at him until he shut down the device. Blank paper was no more helpful. His pen just sat against the paper with the ink slowly radiating outward from that one stalled point.

He’d written papers for class, so why couldn’t be write something of his own? He always had something to say so why wouldn’t that channel into an idea, a plot, a character, a _something_.

Was he really washed up? At 18? Some writers said to tell the story inside of you, but what if he only had that one story in him? What if there wasn’t anything in him? What if love, anger, spite didn’t touch this void in him? What if he couldn’t be moved by the emotions of life? Kit shook his head. He wouldn’t believe that. He couldn’t!

He would defeat this void. He would defeat it as St. George defeated the dragon, as the Beowulf slayed Grendel, as Achilles slew Hector. He would beat this. Or die trying.


	6. Act V

**Scene 1**

Will rubbed at his eyes again and ran both his hands through his hair, pushing it off his face. Kit knew it was a hard day when he ran both hands through his hair. He was also still nursing the same cup of coffee that had gone cold over an hour ago so he wasn’t drinking it for the caffeine. He had his suspicions that Will’s budget for the month was stretched thin, but he didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to add another strain to the one’s already pulling Will apart. He kept spinning a pen between his fingers as he read over his essay again and again. It was like sitting across from a spring that had been wound too tight.

When Kit couldn’t take it any longer, he asked, “Want me to look at it?”

“What?” Will blinked at him. Kit saw bruise-like shadows under his eyes. Had he been sleeping? Why was he here if he was so tried?

“Do you want me to look over your essay? A fresh pair of eyes,” he said again.

Something about what he’d said teased a halfhearted smile from Will. “Fresh eyes? You haven’t been sleeping much more than I have, Kit.”

“That’s beside the point.”

Will sighed and held the papers out—he still preferred to write in long hand. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t.” Kit took the papers in his hand and picked up a pencil to dive into the sea of scribbles that passed for Will’s handwriting. At first, Kit hadn’t been able to read it at all. It was narrow, angular, and above all rushed, like his hand couldn’t keep up with his mind, and Kit was sure that was the exact problem. Sentences were started then crossed out as Will thought of a better word or phrase. Revisions were added in above lines of text in a smaller hand. As he read over the lines of Will’s essay, he felt like he’d been let into his friend’s mind, seeing as Will thought. He felt like he’d been let in on a secret.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Will lean back in his chair and rub tiredly at his eyes. When he dropped his hands into his lap and closed his eyes, Kit saw that the delicate skin of his eyelids was lavender, reminding him of the dawn preceding the lights of his eyes. Maybe Will would fall asleep, and then he’d get some rest.

“You don’t have to edit it, really.” Will’s voice interrupted him, and Kit started in his chair.

He shook his head. “It’s fine, Will.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

Will leaned back onto the table, his hands folding over his arms. “No, really Kit, thanks. I,” he ran a hand through his hair again, “Richard’s always asking me to read his, and I don’t mind, I don’t, but—”

Kit reached out and put his hand on Will’s shoulder. “I know, and I’m happy to do it.”

Will smiled wanly and nodded. Kit squeezed his shoulder and went back to reading Will’s essay, marking grammar and difficult passages. He still felt Will’s gaze on him, and he was mostly used to it. Will’s examining gaze that seemed to pull secrets from where he most wanted to keep them hidden, his admiration that made Kit feel like he would live up to the way people said his name, and the one he was looking at Kit with now, the warm one, the one that felt like the sun warding off winter’s bite.

A single beep from Will’s phone broke both of their concentrations. Kit glanced up from Will’s conclusion and saw him frown at his phone. He grunted and tossed it onto the table before gathering it up again in his hand. Will’s scowl was evident on his face as he glared at the screen.

“What’s wrong? Is it Anne?” Kit asked. He knew Will had gone home for winter break and that he was still with Anne, but Will’s answers to Kit’s questions on that front were all short and concise. He knew well enough not to press on them.

Will shook his head and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “No,” he opened his eyes, “Richard has company tonight, and I was really looking forward to sleep.”

“Stay at my place,” Kit said instantly. Will’s eyes cut up to his, and Kit’s stomach flipped nervously. He’d spoken too quickly. He’d screwed it up.

“I—I couldn’t,” Will said. His voice tripped through the words, and now Kit knew it was about Anne who had found out about Alice. Part of his mind wandered down the path of what it meant that Will was equating him with Alice on some level, but the majority of his attention took in the exhaustion that hung on Will like a second shirt. Will was staring at him again with the same look he’d worn after Halloween when they’d first sat at this table in the cafe. It was a look full of self-conscious questions so unlike his usual bright curiosity.

He could reassure Will again that everything was okay, so why did his chest feel tight again? “Will, we’re friends, right? So just crash at my place tonight. You don’t have an early class tomorrow, and my couch is very comfortable.”

“Are you sure it’s alright?” The fragile hope in Will’s voice seemed to fray at the edges.

Kit nodded. “Of course.”

 

**Scene 2**

When Kit woke up and smelled coffee, he questioned where he was. Tommy never made coffee, but he was alone in bed.

Emerson hadn’t spent the night last night.

Will had, and that sent a small thrill through Kit as he headed towards the kitchen in his apartment. He found Will barefoot and in yesterday’s clothes standing at his stove with a mug in one hand. Morning sunlight slanted in through the window and left bright patches on the floor and kitchen table where a mug of coffee steamed. A plate of buttered toast sat next to two empty plates. It took his brain too long to comprehend that Will was standing barefoot in his kitchen with mussed hair while _making breakfast_.

Will turned away from the stove with a frying pan in one hand and grinned when he saw Kit who noticed how Will’s eyes landed on his bare chest before darting back up to his face. “Oh, you’re awake. I,” his smile turned sheepish. “I made breakfast as a thank you for letting me crash here, I guess.”

“If you’re going to cook for me, then my door is always open.” Will slid eggs onto the two plates and then sat down across from Kit. He drew one knee up to his chest and looped his arm around it.

“This is really good,” Kit said, and Will smiled at his plate.

“It’s just eggs and toast, Kit. Nothing spectacular.”

Kit waved his fork at Will. “Shut up and let me compliment you, alright?”

Will blushed, but he didn’t miss a beat. “I’m all ears for your silvered words of praise.”

“Better,” he said through a mouthful of egg. Will chuckled lowly against his mug of coffee.

Barefoot and alone in his quiet apartment with Will was easier than Kit had thought it would be. It was the most pleasant morning-after he’d ever had. Well, the most pleasant morning-after that didn’t involve sex if he was being truly honest. He thought about telling Will that and pulling a surprised laugh out of him, but then he remembered how cautious Will had looked last night, how he’d been uneasy about accepting Kit’s offer. He didn’t want to send him running from the apartment, and this morning was too nice to ruin just yet.

“Did you finish the Behn reading for today?” Will asked. He was still sitting with one foot tucked up on the chair, and his t-shirt collar was lopsided. There were wrinkles in it from sleep. This was a softer version of Will that wasn’t crisp book pages and quick wit—although he still matched Kit when he chose to—and this wasn’t the Will of late nights with little sleep who seemed frayed and scattered at the edges. This Will got tucked away from the eyes of everyone, and Kit felt like he’d been let in on a second secret in as many days.

Kit nodded in answer to Will’s question. “I read _Oroonoko_ over break so I should be fine.”

“What about the poems?”

“I’ll read them before class.”

“Kit!” Kit laughed at Will’s outburst of admonishment. He was still surprised that Kit did his reading last minute.

“Don’t give me that. You didn’t finish the coterie poems before lecture, remember?”

Will glowered at him over the rim of his mug but didn’t say anything. They lapsed into silence again as Kit got up to put the dishes in his sink. He’d wash them later, and he hated doing dishes. When Will saw what he was doing, he lurched out of his chair to take them from Kit.

“Let me.”

“You cooked, I’ll clean.”

“But I slept here,” Will insisted, trying to take the dishes from Kit.

“So did I.”

“Kit, let—”

“Christ, you’re a demanding house guest,” Kit muttered as Will took the plates and started running hot water over them.

“He cooks and he cleans,” Kit murmured as he leaned against the counter next to Will.

Will grinned. “Husband material.”

Kit’s heart stuttered in his chest as he turned to stare at Will whose hands had stalled in the sink. The silver promise ring on his finger gleamed in the sunlight. They stood there for a few beats of silence as if neither of them had something to say. Kit couldn’t remember when they’d both been at a loss for words, but all that seemed to run through his mind was useless static. _Husband material_. Kit wanted to die right there.

Will found his voice before Kit could. “That’s what Anne says, at least.”

“She’s lucky to have you.”

Will turned his flushed face to Kit and smiled slightly. Thinking that Will needed a moment with his thoughts, Kit left the room to get dressed while Will finished the dishes, and the domestic- _ness_ of it all made him want to gag. Since when was he mister wake up to the smell of coffee and eat breakfast in his apartment with whoever had spent the night before? He wasn’t that guy, but somehow he was this morning. He’d blame it all on Will who kept surprising him and being the one outlier he couldn’t predict, like a syllable out of meter, made all the more meaningful for how it didn’t fit in. When he returned with a shirt on, Will was still at the sink so Kit leaned back against the counter next to him.

Will’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and Kit slid it out before Will could react.

“It’s probably Richard. I need to stop by and shower before class.”

Kit saw the name on the screen. “It’s Anne.”

Will stiffened a little and reached to dry his hands on a dish towel before reaching for the phone.

“I should go,” he strode back to the sofa and gathered his backpack up. Kit watched him move around while pushing his curls out of his face. He was nervous again.

Will stood with his hand on the doorknob with the unsure look on his face again.

“See you later,” he said, still leaning against the counter.

“Bye, Kit.”

 

**Scene 3**

He’d really fucked up this time. Will rolled his shoulder where Richard had thrown him to the ground.

_“I love Alice.”_

_“Of course you do. Everyone loves Alice.”_

He rubbed his hands over his face as if that would change anything. Alice hated him, and she had every right to. I only said those things because your brother told me to stay away from you for good, what kind of apology was that? It was the coward’s way out, and he knew it. Will walked through the city with his hands shoved into his pockets. He didn’t want to go to the cafe right now. He didn’t want to be on campus. He didn’t even want to go home. He just wanted to go somewhere no one knew his name.

What a brilliant note to end the year on! Will chided himself for the thought because he’d started screwing up long before he’d come clean to Richard and long before Alice decided to transfer schools. _To get away from you_ , his mind supplied, and he shoved the thought as far away as he could which was still, not very far.

Richard was pissed at him. So that meant Autolycus and Moll would avoid him too, or maybe just look at him with pitiful looks. Why couldn’t you do better Will? Alice hated him, but she also said she loved him. Will knew those two emotions had more in common than most people gave them credit for. They weren’t poles of the earth that was the human heart. They were much closer than that, two sides of the same coin.

_I will always love you, but I cannot be with you._

Remembering her words brought tears to his eyes, and he dragged his hand across his face because his tears should not belong to _Alice_.

God, there was another screw up in his year here: how he’d treated Anne. He’d been selfish and stupid, and selfish again. Will slipped into an alley and slid down against the wall, shaded from the sun as tears spilled down his cheeks.

He’d promised no more secrets from Anne who had forgiven him more times than he deserved, but he couldn’t tell her about this. He couldn’t hurt her again.

She deserved better than that. Better than him.

Could he do better? He’d made a promise to her, and he wore the ring to prove it. They’d made a promise for their futures, and could he honor it? Will sat against the wall turning his choices over in his mind. If he’d never loved Alice, if he’d never hurt Anne, if he’d never kissed Alice, if he’d never lied to Richard, if he’d never lied to Alice, if he’d never lied to Anne.

Writers lived on lies, spinning stories of made up people in made up lands. They were his stock in trade, and when had he lost control of them? That they’d spilled over and poisoned his life?

_We’re writers. Lies are like breathing for us._

He smiled bitterly at what Kit had said to him at a late night at the cafe. Lies may not bother Kit Marlowe, but little did. Little got beneath his diamond hard armor, and oh how Will envied him. Maybe if his heart were harder, he could’ve been the man Anne deserved.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he stood up in the alley and started back towards campus, but he’d made a decision. When he went home for summer, he’d spend it with Anne. He’d be the man she deserved.


	7. Epilogue

The end of their first year was upon them. The days leading up to it were a blur of final exams, trips to the library, and packing to move out of the dorms. Richard was at least talking to him again, but their friendship wasn’t what it had been before he’d come clean about Alice. Will was hoping the summer break would be enough to get them back to normal, but he was looking forward to living alone next year in case Richard hadn’t forgiven him.

He hadn’t heard from Alice in weeks. She was transferring schools, and she hadn’t told him where she was going. Will wasn’t going to ask if she didn’t want him knowing.

Kit was as enigmatic as ever. Will had notebooks full of notes and annotations scribbled in the margins, but he rarely if ever saw Kit study. Last time they’d been to Groundlings, Kit had been typing furiously away on a paper at 10pm.

“It’s due at midnight. Approaching deadlines always get the blood flowing,” he’d said without glancing up from his screen.

Will hadn’t disagreed, but he didn’t find an impending deadline as exhilarating as Kit apparently did. Even still, over the top of his computer, Kit’s eyes traced across his lines of text with a laser like focus. A notebook next to him showed scribbles of page numbers and words that may or may not have made their way into the essay. Will felt like he was seeing a layer of Kit’s veneer rubbed away, like pulling back the clock face and seeing the gears inside.

It was distracting, but he’d been there every night studying anyway, reassuring himself that his grades would be fine.

Richard had left him largely alone during finals. Will would’ve thought he was being ignored if not for the re-auditions. Students in the theater department had to re-audition at the end of their first and second years to continue with the program. For as much as Richard boasted of natural talent and innate charisma, Will caught him often practicing his monologues, rehearsing off-book, and studying.

Finals came, and finals passed. Will made top marks, and Richard had passed his re-audition. They would both be returning next year.

He was packing up the last of his things in his dorm room when there was a knock on the open door. Kit was leaning against it, surveying the stuffed suitcases and boxes stacked around Will’s and Richard’s room.

Will grinned. “Come to say your goodbyes?”

“Something like that. Can I come in?”

“Please.” Will moved a box of books off of his desk chair for Kit to sit down.

Kit took a seat but then didn’t say anything. Will started to grow warm under the collar as the silence stretched on, and he started refolding sheets to give his hands something to do.

“I’m assuming you passed your finals,” Kit finally said.

Will held in a sigh of relief. “I bet you did too.” The fitted sheet wasn’t folding, and Will was left with a lumpy bundle when he turned around to put it in the pile.

“That’s a mess,” Kit said, pointing at the badly folded sheet in Will’s arms.

“ _This_ ,” Will held it up, “is a lost cause.”

“Give it here.” Kit stood up and had taken the sheet from Will before he could protest that he could fold his own bedding. He unfurled the wrinkled sheet and slipped the corners over his hands. Will watched him fold the sheet in half, each time tucking it into the corner where his hand had been with clean, deliberate movements.

“Here, Mr. Husband Material.” He handed Will the now neatly folded sheet, and Will’s insides twisted uncomfortably at the nickname, the nickname he’d given himself while washing dishes in Kit’s apartment. The memory of that sunlit morning didn’t ease his guilt, but, he told himself for the hundredth time, nothing had happened. They were friends, and his friend had done him a favor. It wasn't any different from him editing Richard's essays. 

“Thanks.” Will turned away from Kit and packed the sheet away, not quite able to look him in the eye. Anne was driving down to help him move back home, and he was nervous about what four hours alone in a car would look like when they arrived back home.

“Will?” Will exhaled quickly and plastered what he hoped was a smile of clear conscience on his face when he faced Kit again. “Hm?”

He’d failed. He could tell that much from Kit’s expression.

“You and Anne aren’t still together are you?” Something in Kit’s tone made Will pause, but he couldn’t tell if he was being judged or not.

“We are,” he said shortly. “Why?”

Kit shook his head. “No reason, just asking.”

He stood up. It was just as well, Will supposed, because his phone started ringing. It was Anne.

“I’ll see you in the fall?” Will asked. He hadn’t meant for it to be a question, but he was still hanging on Kit’s answer.

Kit smiled. “Have a good summer, Will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is very different from the original show, and I hope those changes are clear--or will become clear--in the story. I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing this. I'm on tumblr as ophelia-dreaming 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always welcome! Happy reading :)


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